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(14) Over against that body, stands the principle which is
self-caused, which is all that neither enters into being nor
passes away, the principle whose dissolution would mean the end
of all things never to be restored if once this had ceased to be,
the sustaining principle of things individually, and of this
kosmos, which owes its maintenance and its ordered system to the
soul.
This is the starting point of motion and becomes the leader and
provider of motion to all else: it moves by its own quality, and
every living material form owes life to this principle, which of
itself lives in a life that, being essentially innate, can never
fail.
Not all things can have a life merely at second hand; this would
give an infinite series: there must be some nature which, having
life primally, shall be of necessity indestructible, immortal, as
the source of life to all else that lives. This is the point at
which all that is divine and blessed must be situated, living and
having being of itself, possessing primal being and primal life,
and in its own essence rejecting all change, neither coming to be
nor passing away.
Whence could such a being arise or into what could it disappear:
the very word, strictly used, means that the thing is perdurable.
Similarly white, the colour, cannot be now white and now not
white: if this "white" were a real being it would be eternal as
well as being white: the colour is merely white but whatsoever
possesses being, indwelling by nature and primal, will possess
also eternal duration. In such an entity this primal and eternal
Being cannot be dead like stone or plank: it must be alive, and
that with a life unalloyed as long as it remains self-gathered:
when the primal Being blends with an inferior principle, it is
hampered in its relation to the highest, but without suffering
the loss of its own nature since it can always recover its
earliest state by turning its tendency back to its own.
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